Butter Rum Cake

When we first arrived in the Virgin Islands, we stayed at a great little resort called The Palms. Upon entering our room, we were greeted with a complimentary bottle of Cruzan rum!

Cruzan is a local rum made right here on the island. It’s sold basically everywhere here and you can even tour the distillery! When the Dutch were settled on the island early on, they had several dozen sugar plantations in operation. In 1760, Cruzan rum went into production using the local sugar cane.

Personally, I’m not much of a rum fan, but as we explored the island’s many restaurants, we noticed they all had one thing in common. Every single restaurant we went to served some form of rum cake on it’s dessert menu. And I tried them all!! Some weren’t bad, one was downright awful, and another was, by far, the best out of all of them. It inspired me, and I decided to put my own two cents in to see what I could come up with. Boy oh boy, am I ever glad I did!!! Don’t go any farther though if you’re in any way averse to butter, eggs, or sweet rummy goodness.

My version of rum cake is based on a pound cake, but I decided it’d be more fun as a Bundt cake. The recipe here is for a full size Bundt, but you can easily cut the ingredients in half and make one 9-by-5 inch loaf.

The ingredients are salt, brown sugar, vanilla, cake flour, and sugar. Plus…

…you’ll need lots of unsalted butter, lots and lots of eggs, and, of course, plenty of rum!

You need a whole dozen eggs for this recipe. I know, I know, but trust me, it’s so worth it! Before you start mixing anything, separate the eggs so that you have six whole eggs, plus six yolks. You can save the remaining 6 egg whites for another recipe, or toss them if you won’t use them. Set the eggs aside for now.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, beat the butter on medium high speed for a few seconds until smooth and shiny. With the mixer still running, very slowly add both the white and the brown sugars. Continue mixing on medium high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, and almost white in color.

It should take about five minutes. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl once or twice, as needed.

While the butter is mixing, combine the eggs, vanilla, and rum in a medium bowl, or large measuring cup, and mix together lightly. When the butter mixture is ready, reduce speed to low and slowly add the egg mixture in a thin stream, then beat in the salt.

Sift one-third of your flour on top of the batter and gently fold it in with a spatula. Repeat the process twice more, until you’ve used all of the flour and the batter is mixed completely.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured Bundt pan. Bake at 325 degrees for one hour, or until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. **If desired, you can sprinkle about a cup of chopped walnuts into the bottom of the pan before pouring the batter in!!**

While the cake is baking, why don’t we work on a little glaze to go on it?

Obviously, we’ll go ahead and use some more rum here, but you’ll also need unsalted butter, vanilla, and sugar, as well as a small amount of water.

In a small saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, and water over high heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce heat to medium high, and continue boiling for five minutes. Remove the mixture from the heat and carefully stir in the vanilla and rum (add it slowly to prevent it from sputtering too much).

Once the cake comes out of the oven, drizzle a quarter to a third of the glaze on the bottom and allow it to rest for five minutes.

Now turn the cake out onto a plate or cake stand. If you added the walnuts to the pan earlier, then your cake will have a pretty walnut topping on it.

Now gently poke your cake all over with a fork to allow the remaining glaze to really get in there.

Slowly drizzle the remaining glaze over the cake, the slower the better. As you go slowly, each layer of glaze sinks in and sets up just the tiniest bit.

Unfortunately, you are going to lose some glaze to the plate, but every cloud has it’s silver lining. That extra runoff glaze makes a delicious garnish to ice cream! I love how dense, and yet light, this cake is. It’s utterly irresistible! Plus, it keeps very nicely for four to five days.

This is so delicious all by itself, or excellent with a little scoop of ice cream. I prefer vanilla, but this vanilla/chocolate swirl was pretty dang tasty, too.

Or, if you’re really feeling frisky, you can save a little glaze and drizzle it over your ice cream! Enjoy!

Butter Rum Cake [Printable Version]

Ingredients

FOR THE CAKE
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
6 eggs, plus 6 egg yolks, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/4 cup dark rum
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups cake flour
1 cup chopped walnuts, optional

FOR THE GLAZE
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup dark rum

To make the cake: Grease and flour one large Bundt pan. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, beat the butter on medium high speed for a few seconds until smooth and shiny. With the mixer still running, very slowly add both the white and the brown sugars. Continue mixing on medium high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, and almost white in color, about five minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl once or twice, as needed.

While the butter is mixing, combine the eggs, vanilla, and rum in a medium bowl, or large measuring cup, and mix together lightly. When the butter mixture is ready, reduce speed to low and slowly add the egg mixture in a thin stream, then beat in the salt.

Sift one cup of the flour on top of the batter and gently fold it in with a spatula. Repeat this process twice more, until all of the flour is used and the batter is mixed completely.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for one hour.

To make the glaze: In a small saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, and water over high heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce heat to medium high, and continue boiling for five minutes. Remove the mixture from the heat and carefully stir in the vanilla and rum (add it slowly to prevent it from sputtering too much).

Drizzle the bottom of the cake with about 1/3 of the glaze and allow to stand in the pan for 5 minutes. Invert and transfer the cake to a plate, poke several times with a fork and drizzle with the remaining glaze. Allow to cool to room temperature before serving.

Recipe by Darla

Tagged as: Bundt, Butter, Butter Rum Cake, Cake, Glaze, Recipes, Rum